A growing number of people have been led to
believe that an airliner did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11. However, in this
case the "official version" of events is irrefutable.

Father Stephen McGraw had taken a wrong turn
on his way to Arlington National Cemetery the morning of September 11, 2001.
After taking the Pentagon exit onto Washington Boulevard, Fr. McGraw found
himself mired in traffic, stewing impatiently over being late for a planned
graveside service. Suddenly the priest heard a deafening roar as a large aircraft
passed directly over the roof of his car. "It looked like a plane coming
in for a landing … I mean, in the sense that it was controlled and sort
of straight," recalled Fr. McGraw.

The priest "looked out just as the plane clipped an
overhead sign and then toppled a light pole, injuring a taxi driver a few
feet away," recounts investigative author James Bamford in his new book
A Pretext for War. "A second later, American Flight 77 smashed into the
gray concrete wall of the Pentagon. The jet hit with such force that it penetrated
four of the five concentric rings of corridors and offices surrounding a gazebo
in the center court, long nicknamed Ground Zero."

"I saw it crash into the building," testifies
the priest. "There was an explosion and a loud noise, and I felt the
impact. I remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows.... I saw an
explosion of fire billowing through those two windows. I remember hearing
a gasp or scream from one of the other cars near me. Almost a collective gasp,
it seemed."

That "collective gasp" was wrenched from the throats
of numerous witnesses who — like Father McGraw — saw the crash
with their own eyes, heard the explosions with their own ears, and felt the
percussive aftershock with their own bodies.

"Did you see that?" exclaimed Aydan Kizildrgli,
a student from Turkey who had also been snarled in traffic. Notes Bamford:
"Traffic along the highway came immediately to a halt as people jumped
out of their cars and began putting their cell phones to their ears. Stunned
and dazed, Kizildrgli left his car on the road and began walking aimlessly
for half an hour."

Also among the eyewitnesses were Dan Creed and two colleagues
from Oracle Software, who, seated in a car near the Naval Annex, watched in
horrified wonder as the hijacked plane dived, leveled off and struck the Pentagon
next door. Telling his story to the Phoenix, Arizona, Ahwatukee Foothills
News, Creed recalled the dreadful events. "It was no more than 30 feet
off the ground, and it was screaming. It was just screaming. It was nothing
more than a guided missile at that point," said Creed.

Moments later, the plane struck the Pentagon, killing all
64 of its passengers and crew. The crash took the lives of another 125 people
on the ground. "I can still see the plane. I can still see it right now.
It’s just the most frightening thing in the world, going full speed,
going full throttle, its wheels up," Creed recalled.

Frank Probst, an employee of the Pentagon Renovation Program
Office, was outside the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001. In
an interview with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Probst gave
his own eyewitness account. He had been watching live television coverage
of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center tower in one of the construction
site trailers.

Around 9:30 a.m., Probst left the trailer and (as paraphrased
in an ASCE report) "began walking to the Modular Office Compound …
located beyond the extreme north end of the Pentagon" for a 10 o’clock
meeting. Approaching the heliport, he looked over and saw "a plane flying
low over the Annex and heading right for him." Understandably, Probst
"hit the ground and observed the right wing tip pass through the portable
750 kW generator" that provided backup power to a portion of the Pentagon.
He saw the right engine take out "the chain-link fence and posts surrounding
the generator." The left engine, he said, "struck an external steam
vault before the fuselage entered the building."

Probst described to the ASCE how, "as the fireball
from the crash moved toward him," he ran toward the South Parking Lot.
He said that he fell down twice, and while running, "fine pieces of wing
debris floated down about him." He only saw "fire and smoke within
the building at the point of impact."

The ASCE also interviewed Don Mason, another employee of
the Pentagon Renovation Program Office. At the time of the crash, Mason was
"stopped in traffic west of the building," according to the ASCE
account of his story. "The plane approached low," flying "directly"
over him, "possibly clipping the antenna of the vehicle immediately behind
him." It also "struck three light poles between him and the building."

Mason, the ASCE recounted, said that he saw his colleague
Probst "directly in the plane’s path, and he witnessed a small
explosion as the portable generator was struck by the right wing." He
also recalled "seeing the tail of the plane" as it entered the building,
followed by a "fireball that erupted" upon the plane’s impact.

Pentagate?

With eyewitness testimony like this, it’s hard to
see how anyone could believe that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit
the Pentagon. Shockingly, though, that’s just what a growing number
of people have been led to believe. A number of Web sites claim that the twin-engine
Boeing 757 did not crash into the Pentagon. Their theories range from truck
bombs and pre-set on-site explosive charges to remotely controlled aircraft
and missile attacks.

It is not just the events of 9/11 at the Pentagon, however,
that have people scratching their heads. Americans are inundated each day
with a veritable torrent of information, both true and false. There has been
a marked proliferation of 24-hour news channels, a renaissance in talk radio,
and a deluge of information on the Internet. Moreover, there has been an explosion
in consumer goods and an accompanying explosion in advertising related to
those goods and services. We are bombarded with claims and counterclaims.
Oftentimes it is exceedingly difficult to separate the hype from the truth.

The problem applies to alternative news media as well as
mainstream media. The former are wont to publish all manner of conjecture
and theory, often based on only the slimmest, often misconstrued, bits of
"evidence." For instance, it is true that our nation and our liberties
are threatened by a cabal of establishment Insiders bent on creating a socialist
world government (see the article on page 20). Many alternative media outlets,
however, persist in perpetuating "conspiracy theories" that are
untrue and misleading. This is particularly true of the assertion that Flight
77 did not hit the Pentagon.

Americans mindful of the dangers threatening the founding
ideals of this nation need be especially cautious in such matters. The hazards
can be illustrated by applying Gresham’s Law. In economics, this law
teaches that bad money drives out good. In the information society, bad information
drives out good information. The proliferation of misinformation causes the
dilution of good, factual information. Valuable information on actual cover-ups,
for instance, is discredited when other alleged, but non-factual and misleading,
conspiracy theories are given undue currency. In short, bad conspiracy theories
discredit all assertions of conspiracy, making for fertile ground in which
actual conspiracies thrive.

The assertion that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit
the Pentagon achieved notoriety following the publication in France of l’Effroyable
Imposture by French journalist Thierry Meyssan. The book, published in the
U.S. as 9/11: The Big Lie, was an immediate sensation in France, becoming,
as Time Europe noted, that nation’s number one best-seller. The book
has since catalyzed an explosion of Web sites and alternative publications
making similar claims. For his part, Meyssan claims that the official explanation
of the Pentagon’s damage — that the hijacked airliner crashed
into the building — is "a loony tale constructed in bits and pieces,
one lie leading to another."

Instead of providing an alternative explanation, however,
he simply demanded that the U.S. come clean. "The official version is
only propaganda," he wrote. "But the facts remain that 125 persons
died at the Pentagon and that an airplane carrying 64 passengers disappeared.
What became of American Airlines flight 77? Are the passengers dead? If so,
who killed them and why? If not, where are they? The U.S. administration should
address all these questions."

Such questions, of course, ignore publicly available evidence,
including the fact that some passenger remains were found. Diagrams presented
by the American Society of Civil Engineers, in its report entitled The Pentagon
Building Performance Report, show the relative positions of passenger remains
found within the damaged structure of the Pentagon.

By applying certain principles, it is possible to evaluate
the validity of a given news report, press release, advertisement, conspiracy
theory, or other claim. In fact, the 9/11 crash at the Pentagon provides a
sort of laboratory with which to demonstrate these principles of critical
thinking.

Evaluating Meyssan’s Work

In essence, Meyssan states that there is no evidence for
the official version of events, then assumes on that basis that the official
version must be false. Historian David Hackett Fischer categorizes such reasoning
as "the fallacy of the negative proof," wherein a person argues
that "‘there is no evidence that X is the case,’ and then
proceeds to affirm or assume that not-X is the case." In such instances
all that is proven, Fischer notes, is that there "is no evidence of X."

Unfortunately for Meyssan, there is plenty of evidence regarding
what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11. The U.S. government did, in fact, answer
Meyssan’s questions in the form of the "official version"
of events. By asking such questions in l’Effroyable Imposture, published
in the U.S. as 9/11: The Big Lie, Meyssan makes a ham-handed, almost absurd,
attempt to lead readers to conclude that no explanation for that day’s
events had yet been offered.

Having come under fire for 9/11: The Big Lie, Meyssan and
his organization released a subsequent book, Pentagate, that more fully develops
his critique of the attack on the Pentagon. The analysis provided in Pentagate
makes attempts on multiple fronts to convince readers that the conventional
explanation of the damage at the Pentagon is faulty. According to the book:

• Witness testimony indicates that a missile was responsible
for the damage. "In all cases," the book concludes, "these
testimonies concerning the sound and the trajectory also correspond perfectly
with the manner in which a missile flies in the final phase of flight, just
before it strikes its target."

• There is no debris from the plane, and the wings,
which should have sheared off, are nowhere to be seen.

• The damage at the Pentagon could have been caused
by a missile but not by a plane. "The building was not smashed into as
if it had suffered from a classic plane crash," Meyssan writes in Pentagate,
"but was perforated as if struck by a missile."

• Civilian sources did not know where Flight 77 was
after 9:09 a.m. on 9/11. Consequently, civilian flight control, the FAA, "could
not have known that the plane turned back [toward Washington, D.C.] since
it had become, by the agency’s own admission, invisible to its eyes...."

• The U.S. military did not destroy the plane, despite
having the capability to do so.

By attempting to develop these five points in greater detail,
Meyssan attempts to lead readers to the conclusion that a missile, fired by
the U.S. armed forces, hit the Pentagon.

Consistent Witness Testimony

A very basic means of judging the validity of any story
is the ability to identify multiple named witnesses who each attest, in consistent
fashion, to the various "facts" at issue. How does Meyssan measure
up to this requirement? The answer: not very well.

In fact, though he asserts that the Pentagon was hit by
a missile and not an airplane, he does not cite even a single witness claiming
to have seen a missile. His only "evidence" for the missile theory
are descriptive similes used by witnesses who attested to seeing a plane but
who compared the plane to a missile. For instance, he quotes USA Today reporter
Joel Sucherman, who saw the plane as it raced toward its target. According
to Sucherman, "whoever was flying the plane made no attempt to change
direction. It was coming in at a high rate of speed, but not at a steep angle
— almost like a heat-seeking missile was locked on its target and staying
dead on course."

Meyssan also quotes another USA Today reporter, Mike Walter,
who saw the plane crash into the Pentagon. As to the plane’s behavior,
Walter recalled that he saw "a plane, a plane from American Airlines.
I thought: ‘That’s not right, it’s really low.’ And
I saw it. I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings." Based on
these and other witnesses who described the plane’s behavior by using
missile similes, Meyssan concludes, "In all cases, these testimonies
concerning the sound and the trajectory also correspond perfectly with the
manner in which a missile flies in the final phase of flight, just before
it strikes its target."

If the witnesses are not saying that they saw a missile,
what are they saying? Sucherman, in stating that the plane seemed "like
a heat-seeking missile" that "was locked on its target" was
not saying that it was a heat-seeking missile, but was simply describing in
an emphatic manner the fact that the plane did not deviate from its course.
The same applies to Mike Walter’s statement that he saw "a plane,
a plane from American Airlines," which "was like a cruise missile
with wings." To anyone with even a basic grasp of the English language,
Sucherman and Walter are speaking metaphorically. Either Meyssan does not
understand the use of metaphor in English, or he is being disingenuous.

The Scene of the Crime

The most intriguing points of the theory proposed by Meyssan
and others that the Pentagon was not struck by a jetliner are to be found
at the scene of the crime. According to Meyssan, the damage to the building
was not extensive enough to have been caused by a giant airliner moving at
speeds of more than 350 mph (more than 500 mph according to the "official
version"), and there are no discernable pieces of the aircraft remaining,
as should have been the case if the Pentagon was hit by a plane. Both claims
are based on misinterpretations and factual errors.

As to the extent of damage at the Pentagon, in 9/11: The
Big Lie, Meyssan provides an aerial photo showing the collapsed section of
the outer ring of the Pentagon with an outline of a jetliner superimposed
on the image. Referring to this graphic, he writes: "If one superimposes
the plane’s outline onto the satellite photo … it can be seen
that only the nose of the Boeing entered the building. The fuselage and the
wings remained outside." He goes on in this vein, stating: "The
plane was stopped dead, without its wings having struck the façade.
There is no visible trace of any impact except that from the Boeing’s
nose. We should thus be able to see the wings and the fuselage outside, on
the lawn in fact."

In his subsequent book, Pentagate, he argues that the scale
of the damage to the façade of the building was too small to have been
caused by the Boeing airliner. This estimation is based largely on an analysis
of a photo taken prior to the building’s collapse that shows the entry
hole punched through the building. In the photo the entry hole is visible
extending to the top of the second floor and ending just shy of two of the
third floor windows. Only the top of the hole, corresponding roughly with
the level of the second floor, is visible. The lower portion of the impact
site is entirely obscured in the photo by a heavy jet of water being sprayed
across the building’s façade by a fire truck.

Meyssan alleges from this that the entry hole was too small
to have been made by a Boeing 757. "The impact itself is nevertheless
quite narrow," he writes. "It extends from ground level to the first
floor of the building (about 25 feet high). [Note that what Americans refer
to as the second floor, Europeans call the first floor.] Its width corresponds
to that of two windows above (about 17 to 20 feet wide)." He concludes:
"The aircraft that passed through this orifice thus measured less than
17 to 20 feet in diameter. That could correspond to the passenger cabin of
a Boeing 757-200 which in fact measures 11.5 feet. But this plane also possesses
wings that give a total breadth of 125 feet." The inference, of course,
is that Flight 77 could not have caused the damage to the façade of
the Pentagon.

In fact, the photo presented as evidence by Meyssan in support
of this analysis is misleading, because the ground floor of the building is
obscured. Other photos were taken of the façade before the collapse
that show much greater damage that does fit the profile of an aircraft. Damage
below the two windows cited by Meyssan and extending through the floor above
ground level clearly corresponds to the entry point of the fuselage, while
to the left and right of this area damage caused by the wings is clearly visible.

Though the Pentagon survived the impact remarkably well,
the plane cut a vast swath of destruction throughout the affected portion
of the structure. The building, it should be noted, is built of steel reinforced
concrete and masonry throughout, supported by narrowly spaced, spirally reinforced
concrete columns varying in thickness from 14 to 21 inches, with the larger
columns, naturally, to be found in the first story.

The load-bearing columns support a slab, beam, and girder
system of flooring. While not a fortress, the construction of the Pentagon
is substantial and massive. The building is constructed of 680,000 tons of
sand and gravel that were used to make the steel-reinforced concrete. Each
of the five sides of the building then contains more than 100,000 tons of
structural building components. The Boeing aircraft, by comparison, weighed
nearly 100 tons and, like any aircraft, was of much lighter aluminum and composite
construction, as befitting a vehicle meant to fly.

The American Society of Civil Engineers described the impact
site and the damage in their comprehensive report on the crash. According
to the report, "Most of the serious structural damage was within a swath
that was approximately 75 to 80 ft wide and extended approximately 230 ft
into the first floor of the building. This swath was oriented at approximately
35 to 40 degrees perpendicular to the exterior wall of the Pentagon. Within
the swath of serious damage was a narrower, tapering area that contained most
of the very severe structural damage. This tapering area approximated a triangle
in plan and had a width of approximately 90 ft at the aircraft’s entry
point and a length of approximately 230 ft along the trajectory of the aircraft
through the building."

No Evidence of a Missile

Because Meyssan misleadingly downplays the damage to the
building, he is able to argue that the damage was caused by a missile. But
here again is another example of faulty logic. In a section of Pentagate written
by Pierre-Henri Bunel, the author notes that the damage at the Pentagon "resembles
the effects of anti-concrete hollow charges...." There is no witness
testimony presented indicating that anyone saw a cruise missile.

Though many people saw an American Airlines plane fly into
the Pentagon, no one is quoted as having seen a military plane launch a missile
and there is no indication that one was fired either from land or sea-based
launch systems. The assertion that a missile damaged the Pentagon is based
solely on the fact that the explosion and resulting damage at the Pentagon
have some similarities with those caused by cruise missile warheads.

In a sense, this argument takes the form of what historian
David Hackett Fischer calls the "fallacy of the possible proof."
This fallacy, Fischer notes, consists of attempting to demonstrate that a
proposition is true or false solely "by establishing the possibility
of its truth or falsity." For instance, it is possible for it to snow
in North Dakota on June 1. It does not follow from this possibility that it
did actually snow in North Dakota on June 1. Similarly, it is possible that
a missile hit the Pentagon. Unfortunately, admitting the possibility of such
is not the same as proving that it actually happened — particularly
when eyewitnesses, including those cited by Meyssan, unambiguously reported
seeing a plane.

To take it to the next step and prove that such an event
actually occurred, it would be necessary to cite evidence supporting the assertion.
It has already been noted that witnesses unambiguously reported seeing a plane
hit the Pentagon and not a missile. Likewise, there is no physical evidence
that would both support the missile theory and undermine the official explanation
that Flight 77 was responsible for the damage.

Meyssan attempts to skirt this issue, but faulty logic again
thwarts his analysis. He cites the statements of firefighters who stated,
"The only way you could tell that an aircraft was inside was that we
saw pieces of the nose gear." He then quotes Arlington County fire chief
Ed Plaugher, who in a statement to the press on September 12, 2001 said, "We
have what we believe is a puddle right there that the — what we believe
to be the nose of the aircraft...."

A few lines later, Meyssan makes the critical leap in logic.
"In contrast to the fragile nose of a plane, the heads of certain missiles
are extremely resistant. This debris that firemen said they saw and that they
had trouble identifying as the nose of the plane could well have been the
warhead of a missile." What is the fatal flaw in this statement? The
warhead happens to be the portion of the weapon that contains the explosive
charge. Had a missile detonated inside the Pentagon, there would not be a
warhead remaining to be found by firefighters. Meyssan can’t have his
cake and eat it too.

Moreover, though Meyssan argues that there is no debris
from the plane located near or inside the Pentagon, witnesses have attested
to the existence of such debris, and some of that debris even appears in the
photographic record. In addition to landing gear, engine components, and the
plane’s "black boxes," chunks of aluminum and other plane
debris were found inside the damaged section of the building.

Occam’s Razor

There are still other problems with Meyssan’s analysis.
He notes correctly, for instance, that Flight 77 was lost to FAA controllers
after the hijackers turned off the plane’s transponder. He insists,
however, that because the controllers lost the flight, no evidence exists
that the plane was turned toward Washington. This, too, is not true. In fact,
the 9/11 Commission Report points out that, "According to the radar reconstruction,
American 77 reemerged as a primary target on Indianapolis Center radar scopes
at 9:05, east of its last known position. The target remained in Indianapolis
Center’s airspace for another six minutes, then crossed into the western
portion of Washington Center’s airspace at 9:10."

In yet another example of the "fallacy of the possible
proof," Meyssan alleges that because the U.S. military did not prevent
Flight 77 from reaching the Pentagon, despite the fact that it is the most
powerful and sophisticated military organization in the world, the U.S. armed
forces must, therefore, have purposefully facilitated the attack. Strictly
speaking, this absurd suggestion fits the basic description of a "possibility."
Once again, however, the necessity of an event does not follow from its possibility.

Overall, however, the Meyssan theory fails its most important
test. A 14th century philosopher, William of Occam, formulated the principle
("Occam’s razor") that the best explanation of observed phenomena
is the simplest. Of the two competing explanations for the events at the Pentagon
and on Flight 77, one posits that the plane struck the building at a high
rate of speed causing both the disintegration of the plane and the destruction
on the ground. The other, Meyssan’s theory, argues that the plane did
not hit the Pentagon but disappeared. Not only does the extant evidence run
counter to this theory, but it does not account for some of the observed phenomena,
does not explain what happened to the plane and its passengers, and is manifestly
more complex.

It is safe to say that the thesis advocated by Thierry Meyssan,
that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, is a tour de force of obfuscation
and misinterpretation. Meyssan has nevertheless attracted a bevy of adherents
who have based their own interpretations and theories on his. Just how prevalent
this theory has become can be confirmed quickly with a Web search. Such a
search turns up very little useful information but returns a veritable mountain
of misinformation.

This, in fact, underscores the problem. Modern society is
awash in a rapidly expanding sea of information, and it has become increasingly
more difficult to identify information that is reliable, factual and useful.
Nevertheless, it is essential to identify reliable information sources and
carefully evaluate their material. What is the background of the source? Does
the source have a track record of reliability? Is the story verifiable? Are
witnesses named, or are they anonymous? Does the story match known or observed
phenomena, or does it run counter to these? Are there elements of the story
that you know to be true — or know not to be true? Has the source consistently
employed fallacious reasoning?

Failure to carefully weigh the reliability of information
sources by asking these and other questions exposes patriotic Americans to
the possibility of being misled and marginalized, an outcome to be avoided
if the tide toward collectivism is to be reversed.